My Excel record of reading also revealed that twenty years ago I had read Barbalet's last published novel, The Presence of Angels (2001). It was meant to be the first novel in a trilogy but Penguin didn't publish the follow-ups. Alas, my thoughts about the novel are riddled with plot spoilers, so I won't share them except to say that it's about expatriates in Kuala Lumpur, and the fragility of their love lives. That makes it sound banal, but it's not. It's about adaptation too, and the heartlessness of fate, and Barbalet's observations resonate with the sights, sounds and smells of city life in a developing nation:

In the city that morning in the dark, the men woke from a sleep that hurt, to trudge towards the building site, from lean-tos and shanties, from old huts that projected out over the creeks, on the sides of the river that pushed down towards the city. Haniff and Omar, still nourished by food eaten yesterday in Medan, came with the rest, pretending to feel at home with the strange new streets, pretending they had been born here too, praying that no one would ask, slipping in through the gates, not glancing at anything, to where the building cast its huge shadow up to the sky. As they walked, others, twenty floors up, watched from their small square of space, their knowing place on the hugest of structures. Omar saw a man relieving himself in the grass, squatting so that only his knees and head were visible. He looked away. Was that how they would live? The boss, however, had not asked for their papers, or passports: they would live.
(The Presence of Angels, Penguin, 2001, pp.59-60)

I remember the shock of seeing house-builders in Indonesia, clambering perilously over flimsy structures, and working with none of the safety gear or procedures that protect builders from death or injury in Australia. Without judgement, Barbalet's novel shows us what it's like to be in the underclass in places where life is cheap.

That skill in bringing time and place to life is there in Barbalet's debut novel too, and so is her interest in the lives of the poor. Blood in the Rain (1986) is an exquisite book, remarkable for the way it recreates the life of young Jessie in the early years of the 20th century as if the author had lived it herself. Without the dramatic events that populate Ruth Park's Depression-era trilogy Missus (1985); The Harp in the South (1948) and Poor Man’s Orange (1949), Blood in the Rain focusses on the interior lives of two children orphaned by neglect and abandonment. Little Jessie and Stephen, the older brother she idolises, are separated by well-meaning relations with very different results.

Stephen is admitted into the newly bourgeois life of Mr James, who is unsurprised by the domestic calamity of his sister Clare's marriage to the feckless Irishman Sheldon. Neither James nor his daughter Miss Dorothy have any idea about raising children, but there was no doubt Stephen would require very careful handling.

There was so much in him that had never been checked, that had run into tangle, into extravagant leaf; dirty thoughts, bad impulses, tempers, tears, insolence, no doubt a passionate desire for his own way. He had succeed with Dorothy. All the little crises had been met; she had learnt to obey, to accept, to listen. (p.35)

The nagging about table manners begins on the first day and never stops.

He sat at the table trying to eat his lunch. The voice went on and on. He wondered how she found time to eat. This voice never stopped.
'Elbows off the table.'
'Cut that: don't put all that in your mouth at once.'
'Don't talk with your mouth full.'
He had been about to ask for some more bread but stopped.
'Don't clank.'
'Don't hold your knife like that.'
'There's no need to gobble.'
'Elbows at your side when you eat.'
'Don't speak with your mouth full.'
He sat back and looked at her dancing knife and fork.
'Elbows off the table.'
'Sit up straight.'
'Please may I: that's the way to ask. (p.37)

This barrage of middle-class rules contrasts with the rough-and-tumble of family life that Jessie lands in. Life with the Whaites is more perilous. While Mr James has risen from clerk to manager, Mr Whaite stumbles from job to job and there's never much money to spare. But the welcome is sincere, and motherly:

Jessie followed Mrs Whaite through the front gate. It dragged on the ground. A face was staring at her through the front window.

'What a journey we've had, Bertha!' She held out her hand to Jessie. 'And this is our new little girl. Shy I'm afraid but I'm sure we know the remedy for that.'

Suddenly a pair of large arms encircled Jessie. Her face was dusted with kisses. Then just as suddenly she was free again as though nothing had happened. Bertha looked at her beaming. (p.49)

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2022/01/18/blood-in-the-rain-by-margaret-barbalet/… (mehr)

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anzlitlovers | Jan 18, 2022 |

The Presence of Angels von Margaret Barbalet

I referenced The Presence of Angels in my review of Barbalet's debut novel, Blood in the Rain.

My Excel record of reading also revealed that twenty years ago I had read Barbalet's last published novel, The Presence of Angels (2001). It was meant to be the first novel in a trilogy but Penguin didn't publish the follow-ups. Alas, my thoughts about the novel are riddled with plot spoilers, so I won't share them except to say that it's about expatriates in Kuala Lumpur, and the fragility of their love lives. That makes it sound banal, but it's not. It's about adaptation too, and the heartlessness of fate, and Barbalet's observations resonate with the sights, sounds and smells of city life in a developing nation:

In the city that morning in the dark, the men woke from a sleep that hurt, to trudge towards the building site, from lean-tos and shanties, from old huts that projected out over the creeks, on the sides of the river that pushed down towards the city. Haniff and Omar, still nourished by food eaten yesterday in Medan, came with the rest, pretending to feel at home with the strange new streets, pretending they had been born here too, praying that no one would ask, slipping in through the gates, not glancing at anything, to where the building cast its huge shadow up to the sky. As they walked, others, twenty floors up, watched from their small square of space, their knowing place on the hugest of structures. Omar saw a man relieving himself in the grass, squatting so that only his knees and head were visible. He looked away. Was that how they would live? The boss, however, had not asked for their papers, or passports: they would live.
(The Presence of Angels, Penguin, 2001, pp.59-60)

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anzlitlovers | 1 weitere Rezension | Jan 18, 2022 |

The Wolf von Margaret Barbalet

This book is about a family that lives in Australia and by what I took from the story maybe just out of town. They are used to walking to school and playing outside whenever they wanted to, but then they begin hearing the wolf howling at night. They are terribly frightened and don’t walk to school or play outside for months. Until one morning something within him tells Tal, the oldest son to let the wolf in the house. He does and the wolf pretty much comes into the house and lies down in front of the fire. That’s where the story ends. This is a story about confronting our fears and dealing with them.

Again one of my favorite things to use in a classroom is a smart board. They are terrific, when you can figure them out. I would begin by putting this book on the smart board as I read it out loud, and allowing the children to see the pictures in this book that depicted the children's hardship and fear. Then as a part of this lesson get the class to write a short story about something that they have been afraid of or what they thought that the children in this story might have been going through.… (mehr)

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cindylansdale | Jun 15, 2010 |